Abstract

Mid-spatial-frequency surface errors can be introduced by various
manufacturing processes. These errors bridge the gap between
traditional figure and finish errors. Although the effects of
mid-spatial-frequency errors on the imagery of an optical system can be
modeled with a ray-based approach, simply tracing rays provides little
insight. We present an alternative method that treats surface
errors as perturbations to the nominal surface profile. This
approach, combined with standard statistical methods, allows one to
make simple back-of-the-envelope predictions of the effects of
mid-spatial-frequency errors for various measures of optical
performance. Two examples illustrating the effectiveness of this
approach are presented.

The lens is taken from T. P. Fjeldsted, “Four element infrared objective lens,” U.S. patent4,380,363 (19April1983). This lens is also described in W. J. Smith, Modern Lens Design: A Resource Manual (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1992), Fig. 21.9.

The phase maps used here are obtained with a commercial interferometer. They were spatial filtered to eliminate low-spatial-frequency errors and then scaled to the same rms value.

The lens is taken from T. P. Fjeldsted, “Four element infrared objective lens,” U.S. patent4,380,363 (19April1983). This lens is also described in W. J. Smith, Modern Lens Design: A Resource Manual (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1992), Fig. 21.9.

The lens is taken from T. P. Fjeldsted, “Four element infrared objective lens,” U.S. patent4,380,363 (19April1983). This lens is also described in W. J. Smith, Modern Lens Design: A Resource Manual (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1992), Fig. 21.9.

The phase maps used here are obtained with a commercial interferometer. They were spatial filtered to eliminate low-spatial-frequency errors and then scaled to the same rms value.

Cited By

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. CrossRef includes content from more than 3000 publishers and societies. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.